[Lewis:]
Sunday June 15th. 1806.
We had some little difficulty in collecting our horses this
morning they had straggled off to a greater distance than usual.
it rained very hard in the morning and after collecting our
horses we waited an hour for it to abait, but as it had every
appearance of a settled rain we set out at 10 A. M. we passed
a little prarie at the distance of 8-½ m1. to which we had previously
sent R. Feilds and Willard. we found two deer which
they had killed and hung up. at the distance of 2-½ Miles
further we arrived at Collins's Creek where we found our hunters;
they had killed another deer, and had seen two large
bear together the one black and the other white. we halted
at the creek, dined and graized our horses. the rains have
rendered the road very slippery insomuch that it is with much
difficulty our horses can get on several of them fell but sustained
no injury. after dinner we proceeded up the creek
about ½ a mile, passing it three times, thence through a high
broken country to an Easterly fork of the same creek about
10-½ miles and incamped near a small prarie in the bottom
land.[11]
the fallen timber in addition to the slippry roads made
our march slow and extreemly laborious on our horses. the
country is exceedingly thickly timbered with longleafed pine,
some pitch pine, larch, white pine, white cedar or arbor vita
of large size, and a variety of firs.[12]
the undergrowth principally
reedroot
[13]
from 6 to 10 feet high with all the other
speceis enumerated the other day. the soil is good; in some
plaices it is of a red cast like our lands in Virginia about the
S. W. mountains. Saw the speckled woodpecker, bee martin
and log cock or large woodpecker. found the nest of a humming
bird, it had just began to lay its eggs. Came
22 Miles
today.
